Reinstatement of The Selective Service

I would agree with you, but our elected representatives to our federal Congress cannot seem to distinguish between the common Offense and general Warfare, and the common Defense and general Welfare.

 

I agree. That sort of training could be enabled by the Judicature for gun lovers when cited for any breach of the security of a free State or its domestic tranquility. What objection can there be to gun lovers becoming more well regulated. In my opinion, our Second Amendment is clear and incumbent upon the People.

After all, what State would be worse off with better aqueducts and roads.

 

I read the Starship Troopers novel all you had to do was two years of "Federal Service" that could be anything even test subjects for experimental drugs but they had to take you unless unable to understand the Oath and do something with you. And you could go Career in the military I assume someone doing R&D or Line Cook on a Ship could do the same.

You do the Service and mustered out you could vote, take on certain jobs like law enforcement and had brownie points with their apparent very good social welfare system it was implied they took care of your needs if you were willing to work or were disabled. In the book they said if Blind man in a wheelchair rolled in they would have to take them and a job could be counting the hairs on caterpillars by hand (it might be a joke). So is that a bad system seems to me if anyone can do it, there is no discrimination on that you could be leaders in society the Citizens. Civilians though could make it in the novel Johnny's father was a civilian as was his entire line at the start and did well. He joined after his wife died and the war was on a condition he said was different (when this part came up it was a state of alert I think not all out war).

 

If not as military, then some other public service, definitely. We have enough deadbeat squatters and whiners who contribute zilch to society as it is. This service can be incentivized a number of ways, not least being those who don't serve in some capacity can just be taxed 5X the rate of those who did do service and lose the right to vote, pay higher tuition to local and state funded schools, among other options. Combat veterans could be either exempt from Federal personal income taxes below a certain income level, basically just a much higher personal deduction; essentially, any number of rewards for service to country can be implemented.

 

Before the modern 'kinder gentler military', most DI's and non-coms had many truly wonderful motivational tools available to inspire draftees. Not many reasons to justify not bringing them back.

 

I always like it when you freedom-pushers start talking draft. I guess if YOUR freedom isn't being bantered about you're okay with it, huh?

 

What do you mean by 'Freedom-pushers'?

 

Well those are all good points but they don't have anything to do with my point, which was about a process to get an electorate that took civic responsibility seriously, in order to provide good governance, not on which war book was the best or whether this or that book glorified war.

 

I'm pretty sure I see where you're coming from on this. Only people passing military physicals would be selected. But volunteering for selective service doesn't mean that you would serve in the military. You may never be called up, and like the book, I would like an option to "call up" those who otherwise wouldn't be physically capable of joining the military. The purpose would be get people who have needed skills. Under forseeable military requirements, even a large full scale war wouldn't require the type of manpower we needed during World War II, when we had 15 million people in uniform. If we needed people with computer skills, we could activate people who had those skills, or if we needed people with different language abilities, we could activate them to work at Federal agencies that had those shortages. And it's not "slavery" as the draft is so often referred to, because signing up for selective service is totally voluntary.

 

I think you're missing my point.
Federal service/military service does not necessarily correlate to making a better citizen. If nothing else war damages a person to such an extent they have greater difficulty assimilating back to civilian life. We can see this with Afghanistan/Iraq war veterans now...they have a higher unemployment rate than their civilian counterparts. Claims with the VA for PTSD are through the roof.

The military does not make you a completely new person, certainly not after only a two year stint which some seem to think is enough time to literally transform a bad citizen into a good one.

As an idealistic Lieutenant on my first OCONUS assignment at Rhein-Main airbase...off-duty when exploring the local community 9 times out of 10 what I saw in Frankfurt, Germany were American GIs stumbling out of bars obviously intoxicated or visiting the local brothels. Perhaps this is how young folks blow off steam, but I was appalled and it certainly shattered my naivete to think military personnel were above the fray.

Ultimately they are just ordinary people...perhaps put into extraordinary circumstances in some instances.

 

I wanted to add also that what military service may do is make you a different person, but different does not mean better in every case. For many service changed them for the better, in some cases worse; but ultimately I believe a better description would be it has made them a different person from the average citizen who has never served.

 

The services are cracking down on this...military alcohol use policies and efforts to deglamorize are established; but when I was in it was a noticeable attribute among some of the personnel I encountered.

Source: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh284/252-257.htm

Military service did not transform some of them...they were drunks going in, drunks while in ...and are probably drunks while out.

Out of a nation of 310 million (United States), we have around 21 million living veterans.

What this means is the vast majority of the civilian population have never served...there is often a sense of awe and admiration towards the service member, current or veteran status. Every one of them has shot at bad guys or been shot at...and yet the reality is the majority of the living veterans never saw combat.

Certainly those who served and were honorably discharged did indeed serve their country whether in war or peacetime, and thus deserve an acknowledgement from citizens who have not. This makes them different from the vast majority who have not in fact. They deserve recognition for this. I want to reiterate however this service does not necessarily correlate into the transformation of a lost wandering soul automatically into a sober, upstanding citizen, law abiding, faithful husband, devoted father, and stellar employee.

 

...if you don't support it,you! will be a slave to ISIS...soon as they behead you..A nation cannot survive with out military protection...

 

Well maybe we are both missing each other's points.

I know that the military is not a magic cure all. Scumbags who go into the military are more than likely to remain that way. However the act of volunteering, to serve something greater than yourself, is what makes the difference between the great mass of citizenry and those who choose to serve. It's not the military service that makes the better citizen, its the fact of choosing to serve that self selects the better citizen.

 

Then make it voluntary with decent benefits for service here is an idea complete four years of service, where assigned, this will include training at a task and a fair wage and after you can go to a community college or trade school paid for 100% to get a degree OR $20,000 to apply to buying a house or starting a business later on.

 

And I can add the long Italian experience with compulsory service. Until the middle of the 90's any boy, 18 years old, had to serve in the Army for a year. This has never affected in any way the presence of criminality in difficult regions of the country [regions, and this is significant and relevant for the discussion, which are today giving the major part of the professional soldiers to the Army].

Then ... numbers count. A matter is to have to finance a professional Army, a different matter is to have to finance a well wider Army with a great number of lazy obliged "soldiers".

Modern wars require motivated and very well trained units, there is no room for compulsory services.

 

So not only should the military get a coerced monopoly based on forced acquisition of funding under threat of imprisonment, they also get people's labor for free, presumably under threat of imprisonment.

Slavery disgusts me.

 

Taxcutter says:
100% agreed.

Conscript armies are just low-grade cannon fodder and a huge drain on taxpayers.

 

For accuracy, such system is still alive in little countries with considerable defense necessities [for example Israel and Switzerland]. But in these cases there is a clear motivation to keep a conscript Army in service. Not to underline that in case of real conflicts, the professional ranks sustain the effort first.

 

Your intentions are better served with an all-volunteer force. Conscription would inadvertently capture many ordinary citizens who could have been more productive by remaining civilians. With our current system, we get recruits who are "being all that they can be".

 

Why do you suppose without a draft we'll be slaves to ISIS, a group with no logistical capability to fight on our soil other than terrorist acts by small numbers of people? We have military protection, the most advanced military capability in the world, and a volunteer force that currently turns some folks away, and also raises the bar on enlistment requirements, because the numbers of military members are high and dwindling due to transition from wartime footing to peacetime footing, ironic as the term peacetime is. Your idea suggests we can't simply ramp up our numbers again and churn out combat ready troops at any time, rapidly growing the necessary forces, which is simply not true.

 

The military is shrinking, not growing. Recruiters are turning more away than are needed. When it is all said and done, factoring in the future costs of treating disabled Iraq war veterans, many with psychological issues which makes them ill suited for civilian employment. The war in Iraq will have cost the United States close to $2 Trillion dollars.

Imagine if $2 trillion had been invested in education, or infrastructure or job programs...instead of essentially squandered into war that has destabilized an entire region leading to the expansion of the militant group ISIS.

This is really no fault of the military, they are controlled by a civilian government...they go where they are told to go and do what they are told to do...however increased militarism is certainly not the answer it is precisely part of the reason we are in this mess to begin with.

Your solution is apparently forced conscription; I fail to see that as a viable solution to anything.